30 I; r:f(' ",'" THE 1HEÄJ R E 'J ' ,.. .1 ";>: :" I 7 0 I \., , ' f':::. . :,Ie; \ O. }3>. 1- *,, ," ø 'I ""\\:: :--.. 1 l' :fll l III,' . # , Þ '"::.' .j l.:'}.;l:= ONE WEEK'S WOR.K T HERE seems to be feverish ac- tivity in the theatre, with new plays opening last week right and left, patrons stomping up and down the aisles, and actors speaking lines to each other in high, nervous tones, and yet nothing much seems to be coming of it. Many of them are nice enough plays, but it is difficult to rememher their names the next day. "Eden End" is easy enough to re- member, once you have got the hang of not calling it "Eden's End." It is a discursive, decent play by J. B. Priest- ley, in which an English actress returns to her natIve heath after several years of indifferent success, has several good, long talks with the home folks, slaps her sister's face, and decides to go back to the stage. This takes quite a long time to do in "Eden End." The essentially worthy nature of Mr. Priestley's play and its several ex- cellen t performances make it all the harder to report that practically every scene is too long. Two or three longish scenes are not fatal to a play, but when every scene, even the best ones, is too long, things get . to a point where you dread to see two characters sitting down together. These English charac- ters, too, have what is known in psychiatry circles as "total recall." They re- mem her everything.. On meeting, after a long sep- aration, they charge at each other with reminiscences until the welkin rings: "Remember the time you and Dodo fell into the sand- wiches? " "Oh, rather-and do you remember when Old Dumpy let all the birds out and Potsey got nine pence for bringing them back?" "Oh, do you remember that? That was fun! And remember the day when Mother let us all go to Smeeky's and we got drenched to the skin?" And then they all laugh immoderate- ly. The audience manages to hold in Well, anyway, "Eden End" has a great many too many words in it, but some of them are good words. It also has Miss Estelle Winwood, who is al- ways a highly satisfactory person to see coming onto the stage, and Mr. Ed- ward Irwin, whose performance as the doctor-father is good enough to make you forget the extra words he has to say. T HE original title of "Substitute for Murder" was "ædipus Wrecks," which will serve as a tip-off. That's the kind of comedy it is, even under its new name. And, for the first act, it is just about as unpleasant a little comedy as was ever inspired by a mother fixation. It even made as ingratiating a young man as Mr. Myron McCormick seem of- fensive, which is quite a feat of play- writing. In the second act, Mr. McCormick " " IAwrtfÇ;l; :;;Ìt);;7t- . . 1' ;::;>."/ . n _ , . ';' ::. :::::::. ".:.:' :::.:::::::::::. "*,:' ;' :: : @ T :t J ?;}%- ":; :;"' '::\;i' w \i fl,"'" ".. 'W' :,. Ie", ;"', " , , '. 1 1; ::1). ';,', L;J,j,' ; ....,: : . ':; ::: ;. .: :;. -: :. . :: :- i . , xt . . TM.., ,<' , . . >. <... . ;1"" i ,.....Y:. " u ' ::i i '.'''.'''{-. :W ..x-:........ . . hw ,t; , ' , : , , .. .t u .... )::". ,Jl 7:GA' -/ '.': ....--. ..... ...... --..... and Mr. Francis Lister engage in a Gargantuan drinking bout which is really funny, not only because the two contestants are good actors but because the idea is so elaborately terrific. What- ever the liquids are that are consumed, even if they are only tea and colored water, the displacement itself must run into something at which the imagina- tion boggles. From then on, "Substitute for Mur- der" goes back into unimportant farce, in which Jessie Royce Landis and oth- ers (Mr. Robert Sloane as Charlie, the not-so-lone eagle, had the most con- sistently written rôle and did well by it) all are pretty much wasted. The idea of shanghaiing an unwanted step- father on a plane which is juSt setting out for a month's endurance flight is a promising one, but it got too mixed up with "CEdipus Wrecks" ever to have a chance. ..-.:.:-: * : " C RIME MARCHES ON" is billed as "a melodramatic farce," which is giving it a categorical dignity which it does not quite rate. ....L\. "melodramatic farce," hybrid as it sounds, would, at any rate, be merely a melodrama and farce combined. "Crime Marches On" is everything but a rodeo. Outraged as my critical sensibilities were by this trifling with the unities, I found myself giving it about a laugh every two minutes, which is very good going. No show that has as many laughs in it as "Crime Marches On" can be a waste of anybody's time, much less mine. What Messrs. Robinson and Hawkins have written is ostensibly another bur- lesque of the radio business, and one which manages to capture more of the butter- flies in that Elysian field than any of its predeces- sors in this form of satire. And they have pinned them onto the cardboard, each and everyone. But they have gone pretty gaga them- selves, through the very na- ture of their work, and have thrown in Pulitzer Prize poetry, fear of high places, murder, love at first sight, and dream fantasy, together with a dash of in- cidental music, until, if you are not one to take your laughs where you find them 1fii . ....:-::::_.. ::::::.. ..; - . J J!h:i fi' .::i I'" .-:-:. \...... : . .